By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
As the Del Rio City Council enters the home stretch of its annual budget process, the council will also consider a slate of new fees for the owners of dogs deemed aggressive or dangerous.
Interim Finance Director Roxy Soto presented the proposed new fees during the city council’s final budget workshop on Aug. 25.
Soto began her presentation of the proposed new fees and fee increases with a summary of the proposed changes. These included new annual registration fees for Del Rioans who own a dog or dogs deemed dangerous or aggressive, increases to international bridge tolls for pedestrians and bicyclists, increases in fees for some water and sewer connections and an increase in solid waste rates.
Soto told the council, “The four new fees are in the animal services division. The first one is a dangerous dog fee and aggressive animals level 1, aggressive animals level 2 and aggressive animals level 3.”
Soto then dived deeper into the new fees proposed in the animal services division.
Soto said, “On the dangerous dog and aggressive animals fees, this is something city staff is still working on, and they are developing the proper ordinance to present to the council in a future meeting. . . City staff intends to present an ordinance that will give the city a process to investigate complaints, determine whether a dog is legally ‘dangerous’ or ‘aggressive,’ temporarily take control of a dog when necessary, put substantial restrictions, make the owners financially responsible and provide for consequences for noncompliance.”
Soto proposed a dangerous dog fee of $75, aggressive animals level 1 fee of $25, aggressive animals level 2 fee of $50 and aggressive animals level 3 fee of $75.
“These are fees staff has been working on based on what some of the community concerns have been, as well as what the council concerns have been, and this is the recommendation put forward by the division to assist with some of those concerns,” Soto said.
Councilwoman Elsa Reyes asked, “Are we going to make sure to educate our citizens on all these new fees? Is (the animal services division) going to take on the responsibility to make sure people are aware of the fees and what each one entails?”
Soto replied, “Typically anytime we have a new fee or a revised fee, we post it on our city web site. The facilities also post it on their doors.”
She added the city gives a 10-day grace period after new fees are initiated to allow the city time to educate citizens about the fee.
“We’ll work with the division as well as with communications and marketing to make sure that everyone is aware of the new fees,” Soto added.
Councilman Leno Hernandez asked, “On the aggressive and dangerous dogs, what are the qualifying factors for those levels?”
Alletse Santos, the animal services manager, replied, “For the dangerous dogs, we are mimicking pretty much what state law already states, in the Texas Health and Safety Code, so a dangerous dog is defined as a dog that causes serious bodily injury to a person, and that is defined differently than aggressive, which we want to adopt into our ordinance as well, to alleviate the different types of complaints we get in the office, because there are complaints of dogs attacking people, and then there are other types of complaints like ‘this dog got out and it attacked my dog,’ so those are two different things.”
Hernandez asked, “And those definitions will be available? Because I imagine, if I take my dog to a dog park and it attacks another dog or I’m walking my dog and my dog attacks a person, I’m assuming those are two different things?”
Santos replied, “Yes, all the definitions will be provided once we present all the ordinances to council, but each one will need to have a fee associated with owning this animal, so that way, the (owner) is at least held accountable, and they’re aware that their animal is aggressive or dangerous. It will be an annual fee for them, to be able to own that animal.”
Hernandez said, “At the point that an animal kills another animal, is that falling under one of these levels?
Santos responded, “Yes, it will fall under one of these levels. I believe in the ordinances that we have drafted currently, it would be level 2.”
Hernandez said, “And anything beyond that, the city has no controls over? Example: We did have a person who came to us with an animal that had been killed by another animal and asked what is the city doing. We don’t have any control outside of giving them a $75 fee?”
Santos replied, “Not at this moment, no. Right now what we do is we just follow our regular quarantine procedure, so we remove the animal, we quarantine it for 10 days, the citizen pays that fee, gets assessed by a vet, and then it’s released back to the owner. The officers are also able to issue any citations that they feel are necessary, but of course those fees are paid in court. At this time, we don’t have any ordinances where we can help the public more.”
Reyes asked, “What about the repeat offenders? It’s my understanding in this particular scenario, I don’t think it was the first time. How are we ever going to try and address those issues, other than just charging them some money? I’m a big dog lover, so if that happened to me, I would want something to be done.”
After some additional discussion, Mayor Al Arreola said, “Does this council feel that these fees are adequate? Do we want to increase it a little? Or decrease it a little?”
Councilman LeRoy Briones thanked Soto “for another week of amazing workshops,” then asked, “How did we surmise these fees that we have here currently right now, the increase, where did we get that figure from?”
Santos replied, “These are new ordinances, so we don’t have them in place currently, so we just took inspiration from the city of San Antonio, and they have fees that are, obviously, a little higher, because they’re a bigger city, so we felt this was appropriate for the city of Del Rio to start getting used to.”
Briones said, “And with this fee, do you have a fee (for) a roaming dog on the street that you pick up, where does that fall under?”
Santos replied, “For the at-large, that, the officers issue citations for the ordinances when they are in violation, and the fees are assessed through municipal court.”
Briones said, “But where is the fee schedule for that?”
Santos said those are considered fines and would be assessed in municipal court. When Briones said he believed those fines should be increased as well, Santos said the council had raised those fines in August 2025.
Briones asked, “When we increased those, where did we get that number from, was it a percentage?”
Santos said, “We compared it to other cities, like the city of Eagle Pass, the city of San Angelo, the city of El Paso, but we compared it to different cities.”
Councilwoman Carmen Gutierrez said, “I have a question, because I think the dangerous dog fee is a little low, and the fact that if it attacks an individual, mauls a person or something, and they may have to take a rabies shot, or go to a doctor’s office, get treated, and is that just a first time? Will there be a higher fee if it’s a dangerous dog and it’s a second incident?”
Santos said, “No, it would just be one annual fee that this person would have to obtain if they wish to keep that dog.”
Gutierrez said, “Okay, just supposing that dangerous dog, they pay $75 to register their dog as dangerous. Is that correct?”
Santos said, “Yes.”
Gutierrez said, “And so that dangerous dog attacks another dog, kills a dog, or worse, injures an individual or a child, is there going to be an additional fine separate? Would that be through the municipal court?”
Santos said, “Normally when we get dangerous dogs, those are dogs that attack people, we go through the whole process with municipal court. Like I said, we submit the affidavit, submit the warrant, remove the dog. So those fees, yes, they will have to pay to municipal court to be able to get that dog back.”
Gutierrez asked, “So this is just a registration fee?”
Santos replied, “Yes, it’s just registration.”
Arreola said he would like to see each of the new fees increased by $25. He suggested the dangerous dog fee be increased to $100, the aggressive animals level 1 be $50, aggressive animals level 2 fee would be $75 and aggressive animals level 3 fee would be $100.
The mayor added, “I’m sorry, I’m a dog lover, too.”
Santos said, “I do agree. I’m not opposed to that. These were just starting off, to see what your thoughts and suggestions were.”
Arreola said, “It’s not going to generate money, but at least it will generate some responsibility on the part of the dog owners.”
Santos said, “Yes, absolutely. It will hold people accountable, and, like I said, if these people wish to keep these dogs, they’re going to have to obtain this permit every single year. If not, then we will remove the dog.”
The council did not vote on the fees, but a majority of members indicated they would support the fees suggested by the mayor.
The council then moved on to discuss the remainder of the proposed fee increases. (See separate story.)
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
